The Air In There

In the mid ’70s, aerospace engineer Frank Rudy came to Nike with a radical idea. Air. It would serve as a permanent cushioning system for running shoes, and it would never go away or flatten out like foam cushioning.

This was something of a revelation, considering that the average runner strikes the ground over 25 000 times at 3.5 times their body weight during the course of a marathon.

The Tailwind was the first Air shoe. It was designed in the notorious Building 108, which required security clearance to get in and was shrouded in rumours of cloned elite athletes. Although the Air bag was hidden deep in the midsole, the difference was like running with a 9-mile-an-hour wind at your back.

in 1980 Air made its big debut on the world stage at the Moscow marathon trials. The Mariah was so popular that athletes under contracts from other brands ripped off the Swoosh and ran their races in it.

It took Nike about three years to put Air into a basketball shoe, the Air Force 1.

1987’s Air Max exposed the technology. Designer Tinker Hatfield had previously trained as an architect and, inspired by the form-follows-function nature of contemporary architecture, cut two holes in the midsole to expose the Air bag.

1988’s Air Jordan III had Michael Jordan picking luxurious leathers for the shoe and an exposed Air bag. It was the first time an athlete was so integrally involved in a shoe’s creation.

The Air Max 90 looked fast even when it was standing still. And while Tinker didn’t make any major changes, he did take the bigger Air bag and give it a red frame. So you knew what was powering the masterpiece.

Air Max 93 featured the best cushioning yet, with an Air window exploding out of the back of the shoe. The 93’s rounded humanistic looks still guide designers to this day.

A 20-something-year-old designer named Sergio Lozano looked at anatomy books for inspiration. Then he designed a shoe that looked like muscles. The result was the Air Max 95, which featured visible Air in the forefoot and the heel.

Air Max 97 took all the learnings from the 93 and 95 to get the first full-length Air midsole. The shoe was designed to resemble a Japanese bullet train.

Which brings us to the Air Max 360. No foam, just Air. After two decades of dreaming about running on Air, it had finally happened.